The highlights (important dates) of American history

1607 Colonizers establish America's first permanent English settlement at Jamestown, Virginia.

1620 The Mayflower Compact establishes government by majority will in the settlement of Plymouth in Massachusetts.

1636 America's first college, Harvard, is founded at Cambridge, Massachusetts.

1754 The Seven Years' War (also known as the French and Indian War) begins between France and Britain. At the war's end, France cedes Canada, the Great Lakes, and the upper Mississippi Valley to the British.

1775 APRIL 19, the first shots of America's war for independence from Britain are fired at Lexington, Massachusetts.

1776 JULY 4, America's 13 colonies sign the Declaration of Independence.

1783 SEPTEMBER 3, Britain and the United States sign the Treaty of Paris,

recognizing American independence.

1789 APRIL 30, George Washington is inaugurated as the first president of the

United States.

1791 Ten amendments-the Bill of Rights-are added to the U.S. Constitution to

protect the rights of individuals.

1800 The federal capital moves from temporary quarters in Philadelphia to

Washington, D.C.

1803 Purchase of Louisiana Territory from France doubles U.S. land area.

1812-14 The United States and Britain fight the War of 1812. British burn the

Capitol and the White House in August 1814.

1844 Samuel F.B. Morse sends the first telegraph message from Washington,

D.C., to Baltimore, Maryland.

1846 The Mexican War between the United States and Mexico begins. The treaty

that ends the war in 1848 gives the United States a vast stretch of land from Texas

west to the Pacific Ocean and north to Oregon.

1860 Abraham Lincoln is elected the United States' 16th president.

1861 APRIL 12, the first shots are fired in the U.S. Civil War.

1863 JANUARY 1, President Lincoln issues the Emancipation Proclamation, granting freedom to slaves in Confederate-held territory.

1865 APRIL 9, the Civil War ends with the surrender of Confederate General Robert E. Lee to General Ulysses S. Grant, commander of Union forces.

**APRIL 14, President Lincoln is shot while attending the theater in Washington, D.C.; Lincoln dies the next morning.

1867 The territory of Alaska is purchased from Russia.

1876 Alexander Graham Bell invents the telephone.

1879 Thomas A. Edison invents the incandescent lamp.

1898 The Spanish-American War is declared in April and ends in August. The

peace treaty signed with Spain in December guarantees Cuban independence and

cedes the Philippines, Puerto Rico, and Guam to the United States.

1908 Henry Ford introduces an efficient, low-cost car, begins the era of mass

production, and "puts America on wheels."

1914 The Panama Canal, built by the United States across Central America,

opens, permitting ships to travel between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans without

rounding the tip of South America.

1917 APRIL 6, the United States enters World War I, declaring war after German violations of American neutrality.

1927 The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) makes the first coast-to-coast

network radio broadcast.

1929 OCTOBER 29, the stock market crash in the United States begins the Great

Depression, a worldwide business slump that ranks as the worst and longest

period of high unemployment and low business activity in modern times.

1941 DECEMBER 7, Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, brings the United States into World War II.

1945 JUNE 26, the United States and 49 other nations sign the United Nations Charter in San Francisco, California.

**AUGUST 6, the United States drops an atomic bomb on Hiroshima and, three days later, on Nagasaki, Japan.

1949 APRIL 4, the United States, Canada, and 10 Western European nations form the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) to provide mutual military aid if any member is attacked.

1958 The United States sends its first satellite, Explorer I, into orbit.

1961 The Peace Corps is established.

1969 JULY 20, Apollo 11 astronauts Neil Armstrong and Edwin Aldrin land on the moon, an event televised 400,000 kilometers to Earth.